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November 7, 2019 -- Brain imaging software developer CorTechs Labs has entered the second phase of a research project funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) that is designed to assess the use of the company's PETQuant software to analyze PET scans for signs of Alzheimer's disease.

The NIH awarded $1.15 million to CorTechs in December 2018 to investigate the use of PETQuant for faster diagnosis and classification of dementia patients. In the first phase of the grant, CorTechs worked on delivery methods for its automated PET image analysis tool to determine a patient's risk of developing Alzheimer's and to monitor disease progression and treatment response.

In the second phase of the study, CorTechs is developing an automatic classification algorithm designed to separate patients with Alzheimer's disease from non-Alzheimer's disease controls. The company also plans to examine if the algorithm can predict the risk of developing Alzheimer's in individuals.

As part of the research, CorTechs is establishing normal values to identify PET scans that are different from the typical population. Researchers will examine the degree of cortical binding of amyloid radiopharmaceuticals so that physicians can distinguish Alzheimer's disease from other similar diseases, like Lewy body dementia or cerebral amyloid angiopathy.